"Yes. What then?"
Pepito put his hand into his pocket and produced a second buckle, the exact fellow of the first.
"Now I have two," he said.
"So I see. One isn't much use without the other. I suppose you will want them sewn on your shoes now. You found that too, eh?"
"No, I cut it off. Señor thinks they are the buckles a poor Busno would wear?"
"Well, no; they are a little unusual for a guerrillero, certainly. But he may have been a bandit first."
"No, no. They were not his. Señor, listen as I tell. I find in the room one buckle; I think I know it. I put it in my pocket. I go out at once into the streets to look. What do I see? I see a man walk; one shoe has a buckle, the other shoe has not. I open my eyes wide; I say to myself: 'Ho! ho! That is what I thought!' But I was not sure. I wait. A time comes. I see the one-buckle Señor go into the Café Arcos. I follow; big Jorge Arcos knows me now. I keep much in the dark; Señor One-buckle must not see me. But I see him; I see his foot; I am under the table. I put buckle one next to buckle two; they are brothers. I take my knife and cut off buckle two. It is Señor No-buckle now! Señor knows?"
Jack had been impressed, not so much by the gipsy's story as by the solemnity of his manner of telling it.
"You have something more to tell me. What is it?"
"Señor One-buckle, Señor No-buckle—who is it? One-buckle, I find it under the dead man in the tall house; two-buckle, I cut it from the shoe of—of the master of Señor One-eye."